hello!did any of you just saw Derren Brown´s ¨How to be a Psychic Spy¨it was televised last week on Uk (you can download it on uknova.com )bare in mind, Derren is a known skeptic and has a friendship with Richard Wiseman.

in it Wayne E. Carr a remote viewer expert ¨succeded¨ on locating a girl and telling her about her surroundings.. the guy wrote like 100 pages and had a lot of free drawings.. with the TV. editing and all it was QUITE impressive.. and the girl was amazed, i really like it.. but.. of course there was a twist, since Derren explained how Wayne E. Carr did it... (with over 100 pages and so many drawings.. he just had to look for the pages where he mentioned something like she said)if this is the best remote viewers can do.. then no wonder why they got that ¨accuracy¨ they pretty much are describing EVERY PLACE IN THE WORLDi love how people dellude themselves

i wish there was a link on youtube.. but there isnt.. maybe laterhave a good one!

For every person who reads this valuable book there are hundreds of naïve souls who would prefer to have their spines tingled by a sensational but worthless potboiler by some hack journalist of the paranormal. You who now read these sentences join a small but wiser minority. Martin Gaardner (Psychology of the Psychic)

ciscop wrote:hello!did any of you just saw Derren Brown´s ¨How to be a Psychic Spy¨it was televised last week on Uk (you can download it on uknova.com )bare in mind, Derren is a known skeptic and has a friendship with Richard Wiseman.

in it Wayne E. Carr a remote viewer expert ¨succeded¨ on locating a girl and telling her about her surroundings.. the guy wrote like 100 pages and had a lot of free drawings.. with the TV. editing and all it was QUITE impressive.. and the girl was amazed, i really like it.. but.. of course there was a twist, since Derren explained how Wayne E. Carr did it... (with over 100 pages and so many drawings.. he just had to look for the pages where he mentioned something like she said)if this is the best remote viewers can do.. then no wonder why they got that ¨accuracy¨ they pretty much are describing EVERY PLACE IN THE WORLDi love how people dellude themselves

Professor Jessica Utts, a statistician from the University of California, discovered that remote viewers were correct 34 per cent of the time, a figure way beyond what chance guessing would allow.

This is an odd statement to post on its own. It has no meaning on its own. Guessing heads or tails has a 50% chance of being correct. Guessing the suit of a card has a 25% chance on average. So what does this percentage mean? Unless we know it is a meaningless statement.

It seems that this involves issues over 10 years ago from a program that ran for over 20 years. In the end the Star Gate program was a bust despite 2 decades of rying to get it to work.

Professor Jessica Utts, a statistician from the University of California, discovered that remote viewers were correct 34 per cent of the time, a figure way beyond what chance guessing would allow.

Nostradamus wrote:This is an odd statement to post on its own. It has no meaning on its own. Guessing heads or tails has a 50% chance of being correct. Guessing the suit of a card has a 25% chance on average. So what does this percentage mean? Unless we know it is a meaningless statement.

It takes understanding statistical probability to understand why 34% is so significant in this context. If you are shown 4 cards once, and you guess the correct one, that doesn't mean anything statistically significant per se, as the correct "guess" could have very well been due to chance, or coincidence. You'd have a 25% chance of guessing the correct card on average. In order to determine if a true non-chance effect is present, we need to conduct many trials in order to extract a noticeable effect from the statistical "noise." So, for example, if you were shown 4 cards 1,000 times, and you guessed 34% of them correct (i.e, 340), the odds of you getting that many correct against what chance would expect you to get would be 21,739,130,435 to 1 (using a binomial distribution calculation). That's huge! Even if you were to eliminate a large portion of those trials, you would probably still be left with odds against chance that are huge. For example, let's say only 100 trials were conducted, and you only got 30% correct (i.e., 30), that would yield odds against chance of 22 to1; still statistically significant (anything below 20 to 1 odds are not considered statistically significant). The fact is that after that many trials, you should be getting between 24% and 26% correct, not 34% or 30%. The point is that something other than chance is causing such odds. I hope that answers your question regarding what the percentage means.

Professor Jessica Utts, a statistician from the University of California, discovered that remote viewers were correct 34 per cent of the time, a figure way beyond what chance guessing would allow.

Nostradamus wrote:This is an odd statement to post on its own. It has no meaning on its own. Guessing heads or tails has a 50% chance of being correct. Guessing the suit of a card has a 25% chance on average. So what does this percentage mean? Unless we know it is a meaningless statement.

It takes understanding statistical probability to understand why 34% is so significant in this context. If you are shown 4 cards once, and you guess the correct one, that doesn't mean anything statistically significant per se, as the correct "guess" could have very well been due to chance, or coincidence. You'd have a 25% chance of guessing the correct card on average. In order to determine if a true non-chance effect is present, we need to conduct many trials in order to extract a noticeable effect from the statistical "noise." So, for example, if you were shown 4 cards 1,000 times, and you guessed 34% of them correct (i.e, 340), the odds of you getting that many correct against what chance would expect you to get would be 21,739,130,435 to 1 (using a binomial distribution calculation). That's huge! Even if you were to eliminate a large portion of those trials, you would probably still be left with odds against chance that are huge. For example, let's say only 100 trials were conducted, and you only got 30% correct (i.e., 30), that would yield odds against chance of 22 to1; still statistically significant (anything below 20 to 1 odds are not considered statistically significant). The fact is that after that many trials, you should be getting between 24% and 26% correct, not 34% or 30%. The point is that something other than chance is causing such odds. I hope that answers your question regarding what the percentage means.

When you say "something other than chance is causing such odds," I can think of it being either psi or faulty experiments. Could there be another? (Serious question, really.)

So, for example, if you were shown 4 cards 1,000 times, and you guessed 34% of them correct (i.e, 340), the odds of you getting that many correct against what chance would expect you to get would be 21,739,130,435 to 1 (using a binomial distribution calculation).

This is a straw man argument. The issue is that the information is lacking.

What I did learn about the experiments is that they were not done well. It seems that a single person was responsible for determining the hit count. That makes a single person the arbiter of whether or not a hit was made.

So, for example, if you were shown 4 cards 1,000 times, and you guessed 34% of them correct (i.e, 340), the odds of you getting that many correct against what chance would expect you to get would be 21,739,130,435 to 1 (using a binomial distribution calculation).

This is a straw man argument. The issue is that the information is lacking.

What I did learn about the experiments is that they were not done well. It seems that a single person was responsible for determining the hit count. That makes a single person the arbiter of whether or not a hit was made.

I was providing an elementary example of the statistics involved and why the 34% is statistically significant, not quoting an actual experiment's results. And how is it a "straw man argument" given I provided no null hypothesis? I didn't say, for example, "the null hypothesis that ESP is at work would be true if the alpha level reached 0.01 or lower." Without defining what constitutes the alpha level, a null hypothesis is pretty much a dead one.

Could you please post a reference to the published experiment/study so that I can see what protocols where implemented? I would agree that having one person be the "rater" would be insufficient, as it could create a potential bias for or against a hit, but I'd need to see the actual paper to determine if that's indeed what occurred; otherwise, it's speculation. I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

So, for example, if you were shown 4 cards 1,000 times, and you guessed 34% of them correct (i.e, 340), the odds of you getting that many correct against what chance would expect you to get would be 21,739,130,435 to 1 (using a binomial distribution calculation).

This is a straw man argument. The issue is that the information is lacking.

What I did learn about the experiments is that they were not done well. It seems that a single person was responsible for determining the hit count. That makes a single person the arbiter of whether or not a hit was made.

Quantum isn't making any kind of argument in that statement, straw or otherwise. I think the dispute is not about the meaning of the 34% finding, but whether that 34% figure is reliable.

So, for example, if you were shown 4 cards 1,000 times, and you guessed 34% of them correct (i.e, 340), the odds of you getting that many correct against what chance would expect you to get would be 21,739,130,435 to 1 (using a binomial distribution calculation).

This is a straw man argument. The issue is that the information is lacking.

What I did learn about the experiments is that they were not done well. It seems that a single person was responsible for determining the hit count. That makes a single person the arbiter of whether or not a hit was made.

Quantum isn't making any kind of argument in that statement, straw or otherwise. I think the dispute is not about the meaning of the 34% finding, but whether that 34% figure is reliable.

If that's what Nostradamus is in essence saying, then like I mentioned before, I'd need to see the actual experiment's details before I could appropriately make an assessment as to whether or not the researcher's findings are "reliable" accordingly.

Nostradamus wrote:The original post provides little information. That is my statement. I do not have anything other than that.

The straw man argument is that you give a solution and demonstrate significance when that is not known to be the situation.

I gave an example of the statistics involved regarding a hypothetical situation, not regarding a real experiment, which is why I'd need to see the actual experiment's details in order to ascertain its reliability.

How can anyone of us logically conclude the results are "unreliable" without first having seen the details about the discussed experiment(s) otherwise? I think it's premature to assume the findings are reliable or unreliable without having first obtained knowledge about its details accordingly.

quantumparanormal wrote:How can anyone of us logically conclude the results are "unreliable" without first having seen the details about the discussed experiment(s) otherwise? I think it's premature to assume the findings are reliable or unreliable without having first obtained knowledge about its details accordingly.

That response is an automatic response from those who simply disbelieve paranormal phenomena. It's a second-line of defense in ensuring that one's materialist beliefs are protected from critical self-examination.

First line of defense: when someone claims that a particular paranormal phenomenon is real or valid, the uber-hyperskeptic will disputes it's validity and demand scientific evidence of the phenomenon.

Second line of defense: when someone does offer scientific evidence of, say, remote viewing, then the next line of attack is to attack the reliability or trustworthiness of those findings or studies.

Third line of defense: - if the person then shows that the scientific evidence is indeed reliable and plentiful, then an extraordinary standard of scientific review will be demanded for determining the validity of any scientific study of the paranormal. And of course, since there aren't going to be studies conducted according to some mythical scientific standard made up just for the paranormal, the doubter then can continue to dismiss the paranormal without truly having to confront the evidence.---

quantumparanormal wrote:How can anyone of us logically conclude the results are "unreliable" without first having seen the details about the discussed experiment(s) otherwise? I think it's premature to assume the findings are reliable or unreliable without having first obtained knowledge about its details accordingly.

That response is an automatic response from those who simply disbelieve paranormal phenomena. It's a second-line of defense in ensuring that one's materialist beliefs are protected from critical self-examination.

First line of defense: when someone claims that a particular paranormal phenomenon is real or valid, the uber-hyperskeptic will disputes it's validity and demand scientific evidence of the phenomenon.

Second line of defense: when someone does offer scientific evidence of, say, remote viewing, then the next line of attack is to attack the reliability or trustworthiness of those findings or studies.

Third line of defense: - if the person then shows that the scientific evidence is indeed reliable and plentiful, then an extraordinary standard of scientific review will be demanded for determining the validity of any scientific study of the paranormal. And of course, since there aren't going to be studies conducted according to some mythical scientific standard made up just for the paranormal, the doubter then can continue to dismiss the paranormal without truly having to confront the evidence.---

Are you talking about my response or Nostradamus'?

If you're referring to my response, then you're presuming I'm an "uber-hyperskeptic." Perhaps you've not read the many posts I've written regarding psi. I'm a believer of various psi phenomena, not an "uber-hyperskeptic." Search any and all posts I've written for evidence of this. That said, it's true what I said above: you can't presume a researcher's findings are unreliable, or reliable, without first having reviewed the underlying evidence, the details. It just makes sense. To do so otherwise would indicate bias/prejudice on behalf of the reviewer.

That said, I do notice that many skeptics do seem to employ one or more of the lines of defenses you've written about above. However, just to be fair, "uber-hyperbelievers" perform similar tactics as well. Unfortunately, it seems we have mostly both types of extremes and not enough of those in the middle.

quantumparanormal wrote:Are you talking about my response or Nostradamus'?

I was talking about Nostradamus. My bad for not being clear. And I think it's a good thing to NOT make assumptions about a study's reliability without getting more information about it. My point about the second-line of defense is any person, skeptic or believer, who doesn't like the conclusions drawn from a study, will selectively challenge the reliability of the study, yet will often assume the reliability of any study that supports his or her prevailing belief system.---